On the 5th episode of ReFi Podcast, we sit with Markus Franke. We hear about cLabs and the vision for Celo—a mobile-first blockchain. We discuss natural capital backed currencies, universal basic income, and so much more.
Some of the topics we jump into:
00:00 Intro
01:10 What is Celo and cLabs?
01:51 Celo is a layer 1 blockchain…
05:09 What piece of this puzzle are you involved in?
07:51 Markus “How can we build nature backed currencies on Celo?…”
09:27 Building a simple inclusive mobile system
11:31 Markus “the user experience is very important..”
16:33 What’s being built on Celo right now that’s redesigning financial systems?
18:11 Markus “kickstarter are decentralising and using Celo..”
21:26 Why is DeFi liquidity good for inclusion?
23:50 Markus “if theres strong liquidity in DeFi then people everywhere can get a loan on Celo”
25:45 How are you making liquidity sustainable on Celo?
27:26 Markus “from the start Defi had a mission to make defi accessible to any mobile user….”
28:59 Markus “this can be used to finance universal income..”
30:19 Markus “this opens up so many possibilities, having something like kickstarter on the blockchain… economic value is created in a sustainable way”
30:51 Empowering people to participate in the financial systems while mitigating risks
35:59 Markus “when we built the protocol we built a simulation…to learn…to see stability…”
37:45 Provo project
39:19 Markus “provo allows banks to try the technology…”
40:09 Can you see your stable coin portfolio sit along side with central bank digital currencies?
40:35 Markus the amazing thing about this technology is it finally allows for competition between currency..innovation..haven’t seen innovation for 200 years…”
42:59 The current state of money
45.29 where does money actually come from?
50:09 natural backed currencies in the regenerative system
53:44 Markus “backing money with trees…what we want to see more of…”
54:35 Setting the right financial incentives in nature
58:49 Bringing the natural capital assets on chain
01:04:12 johnx25bd drops some alpha on Astra protocol
01:12:40 Markus “It was interesting to see with NFTs…nature and trees can be NFTs…”
01:13:18 The opportunity in the ReFi movement to redesign money to regenerate the environment
